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Bacon Makes Your Baby Smarter

November 3, 2010

Throw out those Baby Einstein toys, parents, because it’s bacon that makes your baby smarter! According to a piece that went up on Republic of Bacon, there’s a chemical compound in bacon that enhances developing neural systems — choline, usually classified as one of the B vitamins.

This startling announcement is the result of research conducted at the University of North Carolina — in a region where a suspiciously large number of hogs are raised — by Steven Zeisel, et al. His takeaway quote (only for the technically minded): “Our study in mice indicates that the diet of a pregnant mother, especially choline in that diet, can change the epigenetic switches that control brain development in the fetus.” In other words, feed the mom bacon, not the baby. Although there’s nothing cuter than feeding a baby a piece of bacon, is there?

Classify this factoid with all the other ridiculous assertions that send parents and the newly pregnant running to the grocery store. Remember how, just a few years back, the Atkins diet had everyone eating an entire pound of bacon for breakfast?